THE LEGAL-ECONOMIC APPROACH TO BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION

Unlike other social sciences-archaeology, anthropology, sociology, for example-economics has had very little impact on the field of biblical studies. This article argues that economic science can illuminate the analysis of biblical texts in two important ways. First, with respect to the most ancient biblical texts, economics predicts that information will be packaged in certain rhetorical forms which respond to the high costs of recording and tranmitting information in an oral culture. In particular, abstract ideas are likely to be coded in concrete -i.e., symbolic-form and meaning is likely to be compressed into a terse or elliptical style. Thus, economics offers a set of hermeneutical principles of interpretation that differ in some respects from traditional approaches. Second, economics can offer clues as to the function of biblical texts in organizing human activities to respond efficiently to the technological constraints of Iron Age culture.